My One Thousandth Post!

To celebrate the occasion of this, my one thousandth (yes, 1,000th!) post on this blog, I want to say how much I truly enjoy writing the blog entries, and how much I treasure the chance to share my ideas and feelings about books, authors, reading, bookstores, libraries, and related topics with you. I would like, too, to thank everyone who “follows” this blog, who has commented on it (on the blog itself, in separate emails, on Facebook, in person, or otherwise), and who reads it either regularly or occasionally. Thanks very much also to those who have contributed guest posts. All these “conversations” and connections among booklovers about books and reading mean so much to me. (Thanks too to the Internet for making possible this thing called a “blog”!)

"The Story Sisters," by Alice Hoffman

I stopped reading Alice Hoffman some years ago, because although I enjoyed some of her earlier work, I felt her writing was too “magical” for my taste. But for some reason I picked up the CD version of her novel “The Story Sisters” (Random House Audio/Books on Tape, 2009), and was quite drawn into it, despite its having its own magical elements. The story (and there are multiple uses of the word, name, and concept of “story” throughout) starts with, and is occasionally interrupted by, a sort of spooky, frightening (although with a thread of resistance and strength) fairy tale about a girl who experiences danger, darkness, and violation, and yet knows how to survive. The main story, situated in the present and mostly in Long Island and New York City, focuses on a family, but most particularly on the character Elv, who as a child also experiences danger, darkness, and violation, and is also resilient, but at a price. Elv is the oldest of three sisters (Elv, Meg, and Claire), the titular Story sisters, who are first described as ideally intelligent, accomplished, beautiful, and close to each other. They even have a secret language that only they understand. Even when their parents split up, they seem to do well, and get strength from their loving mother and from each other. But soon cracks appear in their solidarity, and we learn more about a devastating secret that Elv and her sister Claire share. The third (middle) sister, Meg, does not know the secret, and gradually becomes less close with the other two. Things go downhill from there, as the secret causes Elv to “act out” as she goes into her teenaged years, become rebellious and endanger herself and others. I don’t want to give away any more of the plot; suffice it to say there are many twists and turns in the family’s story, most of them sad, difficult, and even shocking. But eventually, despite horrific events and losses, there is some slow, hard-earned, fragile, but real healing. Reading (or listening to, in my case) this novel is not for the faint at heart, but it is compelling and original. At times it slides into the melodramatic in its style and plot, and I am still not a fan of the magical fairy tale aspects, but those do add an atmospheric, psychological backdrop to the main story. As always, for me one of the most compelling aspects of the novel is the portrayal of the dynamics of the family, and the relationships among the family members. And I have to add a note about something related that struck me: These sisters were very fortunate to have some adults in their lives (besides their devoted mother) who just wouldn’t give up on them. One was their grandmother Natalya, who lives part of the year in Paris and with whom the sisters stay at various times; another was their grandmother’s best friend Madame Cohen; still another was their mother’s significant other, Pete. In particular, the novel reminded me of the role and importance of grandparents in many children and young people’s lives. I had wonderful grandparents, but because I grew up overseas from where they lived, I wasn’t able to see them very often. My own mother, however, has always made a point to spend time with my daughter and her other grandchildren, as did my late father. Those grandchildren feel her love and care, and are the better for it.

"The Children's Crusade," by Ann Packer

What a wonderful novel Ann Packer’s newest book is! “The Children’s Crusade” (Scribner, 2015) is even better than her earlier bestselling novel, “The Dive from Clausen’s Pier.” Readers of this blog know how much I like novels about families; a good such novel has all of the world in it. Of course such a novel, including this one, also has strong characters, connections, conflicts, transitions, secrets, and more. There is love, there is hatred, there is separation, there is estrangement and there is -- sometimes -- re-connection. There is pain, illness, and death. But, again, there is also great love. Let me be more specific. This novel is about the Blair family, and takes place over a period of about fifty years. Bill Blair marries Penny, and they buy land south of San Francisco (in what is now “Silicon Valley”) and build a house there. It is a boom time, an idyllic time, and the couple prospers. They have four children. But Penny is not satisfied with the life of a wife and mother, and increasingly withdraws from the family, focusing on her art. The three older children grow up mostly happily, and are successful in their adult lives. The youngest, James, is a difficult, demanding child, and grows up to be the black sheep of the family. After his father dies, James comes back to visit the other siblings and their old house, and disrupts their generally peaceful (although not without problems) lives. Their lives are mostly calm and controlled; his is undisciplined, unpredictable, and disruptive (in the old sense of the word, not in the newly fashionable sense used in the world of technology to suggest innovation and creativity, and if I sound snarky about this twisting of the language, yes, you are right, I am in fact feeling snarky about it…). This book is a generous 432 pages long, bursting with character, plot, and insights, and I didn’t want it to end. Packer is a gifted writer, and this novel is gift I was glad to get.

"The Dream Lover," by Elizabeth Berg

George Sand, the French woman novelist, was a fascinating, passionate, flamboyant writer and character. She provides a contrast to George Eliot, her near contemporary (both were born early in the nineteenth century), who used the same male name, in her case in order to win more acceptance of her writing, and who was also independent and strong, but not at all flamboyant (although she flouted society's conventions in living with her longtime lover). They shared, however, an unstoppable desire to express themselves in writing, at a time when it was not easy for women to do so. George Eliot was the greater writer, but Sand was also a strong writer with a large following. I have to admit I know more about Sand’s life than I do about her work, and have read very little of the actual work (as opposed to my extensive reading of and deep admiration of Eliot’s fiction). Parenthetically, here is an odd related personal memory: When I was in high school, we (very amateurishly) performed a musical titled “Enchanted Isle,” about Sand’s stay on the Spanish island of Majorca with Frederic Chopin, her lover at the time. This memory has stayed with me, and I think of it whenever I hear something about George Sand or Frederic Chopin, although I now realize the musical was a highly romanticized version of their love affair and time together. All of this is prelude to saying that I have just read Elizabeth Berg’s novel, “The Dream Lover” (Random House, 2015), a fictionalized biography of George Sand. It is written in the first person as if Sand herself were writing, and written in what seems to be the style of the time period in which Sand lived and wrote. It is somewhat dramatic, even melodramatic at times, and certainly captures the reader’s interest. Berg has chosen to alternate between Sand’s childhood and young adulthood, on the one hand, and her later years once she has left her husband and started her writing life, on the other hand. The author shows Sand as a very complex woman. She has had a difficult childhood, and is affected for the rest of her life by that childhood. She is determined and disciplined about her writing, frequently staying up all night to write. She believes that women should be able to do everything that men can. She is also not afraid to break society’s rules, and, for example, has many lovers over the years. She is constantly looking for love, and is often in passionate relationships that deteriorate or end, leaving her in despair. She is a loving mother, but struggles with her daughter, and repeats some of the same mistakes her own mother made with her. She is a very appealing, although flawed, character, especially for feminists, artists, readers, Francophiles, and all combinations of these. I am, as readers of this blog can imagine, a fan of books – fiction or nonfiction – about great women writers, so although I think this one is a good but not great novel, I thoroughly enjoyed “The Dream Lover.”

"Honeydew," by Edith Pearlman

One of my best “discoveries” of 2011 was the short story writer Edith Pearlman, who has received too little attention, but whose powerful 2011 collection, “Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories,” brought her to the attention of many more readers and critics. I was – to use a not very literary term – blown away by that book (see my post of 4/22/11). So I was thrilled to hear that she had a new collection out, “Honeydew” (Little, Brown, 2015), and have recently finished reading it. It didn’t disappoint me. The stories are as compelling as those in the earlier collection. They reach that perfect balance among originality, surprise, delight, beautiful writing, and teaching us something about humanity. As in the earlier collection, many of the stories take place in the fictional small town of Godolphin, Massachusetts. In fact here, more than in “Binocular Vision,” small town life and small town characters (albeit ones who often have histories elsewhere) are the focus. One of my favorite characters, one who appears in several stories, is Rennie, who owns an antique store; she interacts with many of the other characters. I find myself unable to adequately convey what is so special about Pearlman’s stories, but please trust me that the stories, and this collection, are brilliant!

"Happy are the Happy," by Yasmina Reza

Yasmina Reza, best known as an award-winning playwright, has written a jumpy, nervous, fascinating “novel,” “Happy are the Happy” (Other Press, 2013, translated from the French by John Cullen.) I put the word “novel” in quotation marks, because although it is labeled as such, this book contains twenty short chapters with shared characters, forming something between a short story collection and a novel. The title comes from Borges’ poem about love (“Happy are those/who are beloved/and those who love/and those who can/do without love./Happy are the happy.”). Certain things about the structure of the book feel just slightly gimmicky, such as the fact that each chapter is one unbroken piece of prose, with no separate paragraphs. But the reader’s experience of diving right into the consciousness of each character, and seeing the same events and experiences from the characters’ various perspectives, provide a kind of delicious (although sometimes painful) immersion in the lives of these prosperous Parisians of the intellectual class. The characters do not always behave well, but on the whole are good people, trying to find their way in life. All the classic subjects (and, as regular readers of this blog know, the topics I love so well) are present: love, sex, families, work, illness, despair, redemption, death, and more. Yet in a way these chapters, this book, are not “about” experiences as much as about painting pictures of lives in exquisite detail. The writing is gorgeous. The translator as well as the author deserve credit for that beauty.

Not Happy with Alexander McCall Smith's "Emma"

The newest book in the Austen Project, which has contemporary writers writing modern versions of Jane Austen’s six completed novels (see my post of 7/6/14 about this project) is Alexander McCall Smith’s version of “Emma,” subtitled “A Modern Retelling” (Pantheon, 2014). I never in a million years would have thought of McCall Smith (author of the bestselling “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective” series, among many other very popular books) for this task. It is true that Emma is a sassy, irrepressible character, like some of McCall Smith’s. But really??? However, of course I had to read it, despite these doubts and reservations. And it is a fun read, faithful to the bones of the plot of the original. But it just doesn’t ring true to me, even allowing for the change of time period. For one thing, too many of the characters sound too different – not just more modern, but essentially different. The style is too casual. The match between the writer and the assignment is just not a good one, in my opinion. For Austen devotees, it will be hard to resist reading the book, but I predict rather profound disappointment on the part of most readers. (A coincidental postscript: After I drafted this post and before I posted it, I was making small talk with another juror at the lunch break of a trial I served at, we somehow started talking about this project, and this juror spontaneously offered a very negative assessment of this McCall Smith version of “Emma,” confirming my own reaction.)